The Dragon Age: Inquisition Thread

[A horse of course]

Actually, I asked native speakers, 4 of them answered, they are people from different age groups, and there wasn't a consensus. The opinions were 2 on 2, whether it's "acceptable" and "what a native speaker would say" or not. I should ask someone at university. And I'll reiterate that being a native speaker doesn't mean you know your language well. Try explaining to a foreigner why something is like it is, and you'll quickly see how little you know about your own grammar. This applies to native speakers of any language who haven't had special pedagogical or linguistic education. I wouldn't ever claim I know my language perfectly, but apparently there are people ready to accept the burden of being all-knowing. Maybe I'll use you for future reference on any questions I have on English grammar, throughout all the variants of English spanning geographically, socio-culturally, and historically, since you think you can be an authority of last resort.

Well, I have a masters degree in English and teach English for a living, on top of being a native speaker, so you can probably trust I know what the fuck I'm talking about when I say that dialog was fine. If you want to act like you know better then me though... hey, have at it I guess.

As do I, and also have training as a proofreader and copy-editor. So I feel well within my authority in telling you that you're a gigantic faggot.
















I don't know anything about the other stuff though.


Why are you even discussing this shit.


Srsly

 

[Azarkon]

I would assume it had to do with the following.

• Balancing DPS is a lot easier than balancing, all those effects BG had.
• The average joe is more interested in seeing his numbers go up, than finding gear with the potential to completely change your playstyle.
• Banal upgrades require a lot less assets to, just take the old weapon... maybe give it a new model, and just up the stats. Instead of having to possibly code a new effect.
• People want to see their numbers go up, fast and quite a bit. Any loot with special effects in a game where the power of your items increases at a high rate will get obsolte too fast anyway for it to be worth it. This is probably why I have seen some jRPGs resort to stickign interesting effects to the accessory slot.
• As games did dumb down their itemization. Players were too silent. Had players taken a bigger stance against the dumbing down, we may have seen a different story. Look at what happened with Diablo 3. The itemization sucked more than Prosper's attempts at doing something good at launch, but due to a heavy backlash from the community. Blizzard admitted they fucked up, and improved it significantly.
• Perks have taken over the role these items once had. Albeit, poorly.

Itemization's issues is not just with bland item effects. Where exactly did the items with trade-offs or stat penalties go? I was extremely happy when I found a weapon in a game (released in 2012), which made me very mobile and set everything I hit ablaze, but was offset by the fact that the weapon had terrible range and I took double damage from enemy attacks.

Of course, the biggest insult is the whole requirement system, instead of equipment requiring stats, they now just require a level. Did really well and killed a dragon with your level 5 party? Too bad, you cant enjoy the loot until you are level 14. Robbing you of your satisfaction of putting on the armor after you killed the dragon, now you ahave to wait for the artificial limitaiton to let you equip the armor. I have seen players defend this crap too, especially more casual gamers. Of course, with todays level scaling in RPGs, it is not all too often to run into items you cannot yet equip.

Sadly we are not the target audience for these AAA RPGs and it shows. It is not just BioWare with shit itemization, but everyone else does it as well.

CRPG designers used to tell me D&D is one of the worst rule sets ever made for computer games, yet virtually every character/combat system they've developed after D&D managed to be infinitely worse. What gives?

I want my overpowered wizards and right-click warriors back. Indeed, I think I prefer them any day over this new age action combat that's so next-gen my party members are spinning in circles whenever I'm not controlling them. And no action canceling in a game with active dodge is so terrible I have a difficult time imagining the devs ever played their own game.

 

[J_C]

Actually, I asked native speakers, 4 of them answered, they are people from different age groups, and there wasn't a consensus. The opinions were 2 on 2, whether it's "acceptable" and "what a native speaker would say" or not. I should ask someone at university. And I'll reiterate that being a native speaker doesn't mean you know your language well. Try explaining to a foreigner why something is like it is, and you'll quickly see how little you know about your own grammar. This applies to native speakers of any language who haven't had special pedagogical or linguistic education. I wouldn't ever claim I know my language perfectly, but apparently there are people ready to accept the burden of being all-knowing. Maybe I'll use you for future reference on any questions I have on English grammar, throughout all the variants of English spanning geographically, socio-culturally, and historically, since you think you can be an authority of last resort.

Well, I have a masters degree in English and teach English for a living, on top of being a native speaker, so you can probably trust I know what the fuck I'm talking about when I say that dialog was fine. If you want to act like you know better then me though... hey, have at it I guess.

As do I, and also have training as a proofreader and copy-editor. So I feel well within my authority in telling you that you're a gigantic faggot.
















I don't know anything about the other stuff though.


Why are you even discussing this shit.


Srsly

I speak broken english and I say that both of you are gigantic faggots.

 

[A horse of course]

I speak broken english and I say that both of you are gigantic faggots.

Honestly your english isn't actually that bad in your videos. I have to strain to understand it sometimes, especially in the beer reviews, but other than that you've been making great improvements.

 

[dryan]

Actually, I asked native speakers, 4 of them answered, they are people from different age groups, and there wasn't a consensus. The opinions were 2 on 2, whether it's "acceptable" and "what a native speaker would say" or not. I should ask someone at university. And I'll reiterate that being a native speaker doesn't mean you know your language well. Try explaining to a foreigner why something is like it is, and you'll quickly see how little you know about your own grammar. This applies to native speakers of any language who haven't had special pedagogical or linguistic education. I wouldn't ever claim I know my language perfectly, but apparently there are people ready to accept the burden of being all-knowing. Maybe I'll use you for future reference on any questions I have on English grammar, throughout all the variants of English spanning geographically, socio-culturally, and historically, since you think you can be an authority of last resort.

Well, I have a masters degree in English and teach English for a living, on top of being a native speaker, so you can probably trust I know what the fuck I'm talking about when I say that dialog was fine. If you want to act like you know better then me though... hey, have at it I guess.

#rekt

 

[Azarkon]

About the characters:

On average, they aren't terribly written, but DAI has shown me that I hate Bioware's dialogue delivery strategy. It feels very lame to have to engage in these 15-minute conversations with party members about their life, their past, etc. in your castle, instead of learning about them during the course of the adventure ala what you did in the IE games when you weren't able to initiate conversation. Info dumps are rarely pleasant, and DAI has tons of info dumps, both in the form of party members telling you their whole life story and philosophical outlook, and in the form of the hundreds of paper scraps you find around the map that you feel you're required to read but which your eyes gloss over.

The first rule they teach you in writing class is to show, not tell. DAI does a lot of telling, and little of showing. Quality varies from NPC to NPC, but Bioware's system makes learning about party members a chore rather than a pleasure. Every time I go back to my castle I feel compelled to speak to every major NPC to see whether they have novel dialogue. That's poor design to begin with, but is an especially big issue in a game where loading different areas of your castle take up to 20-30 seconds.

 

[Ezrite]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

 

[Bleed the Man]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

Well, I'm not talking about the toolset here. Like almost everyone in this forum when they talk of NWN as a really shitty game, I'm refering to the OC.

 

[DDZ]

I must be missing something.

How do I modify/upgrade my parties gear? I don't have a party in Haven when I am upgrading my shit, and they have all their gear on them standing around like dicks.

 

[RK47]

 

[RK47]

I must be missing something.

How do I modify/upgrade my parties gear? I don't have a party in Haven when I am upgrading my shit, and they have all their gear on them standing around like dicks.

Top right hand corner, select party member.
(yes, the UI is atrocious)

 

[Zeriel]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

Well, I'm not talking about the toolset here. Like almost everyone in this forum when they talk of NWN as a really shitty game, I'm refering to the OC.

Yep. I wish someone would try to again make a game with a toolset that occupies that sweet-spot that Aurora does: just simple enough to allow people who aren't active game professionals to make good content, and powerful enough for more advanced users to push the envelope. We really haven't seen a toolset designed for gamers since, everything has been a powertool made for developers--which I'd be fine with except that such tools tend to rely on third-party processes that simply aren't feasible for most people (i.e RAD Game Tools and the proprietary Granny3D exporter).

 

[FuriousGamer87]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

Well, I'm not talking about the toolset here. Like almost everyone in this forum when they talk of NWN as a really shitty game, I'm refering to the OC.

Yep. I wish someone would try to again make a game with a toolset that occupies that sweet-spot that Aurora does: just simple enough to allow people who aren't active game professionals to make good content, and powerful enough for more advanced users to push the envelope. We really haven't seen a toolset designed for gamers since, everything has been a powertool made for developers--which I'd be fine with except that such tools tend to rely on third-party processes that simply aren't feasible for most people (i.e RAD Game Tools and the proprietary Granny3D exporter).

There is though. It's simple to use and making any rpg on it is pretty quick and easy for just about anyone. There are also a lot of mods to enhance it's capability too. It's called

Spoiler

RPGMaker

 

[Zeriel]

RPGMaker

 

[Jaedar]

gamefaqs was made for this!

 

[Infinitron]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

Well, I'm not talking about the toolset here. Like almost everyone in this forum when they talk of NWN as a really shitty game, I'm refering to the OC.

Yep. I wish someone would try to again make a game with a toolset that occupies that sweet-spot that Aurora does: just simple enough to allow people who aren't active game professionals to make good content, and powerful enough for more advanced users to push the envelope. We really haven't seen a toolset designed for gamers since, everything has been a powertool made for developers--which I'd be fine with except that such tools tend to rely on third-party processes that simply aren't feasible for most people (i.e RAD Game Tools and the proprietary Granny3D exporter).

D:OS was supposed to be that

 

[Zeriel]

I'm definitly not having fun anymore with this game. Actually, I'm sick of it. i wanted to specialize and be a rift mage, so I had to do the Exalted Plains. i realized completing this zone, that I can't endure any more fetch quest. Since NWN I don't remember an RPG so fucking tiresome and repetitive .

I will rush through the main quest, because I like the lore and I want to know in which state will be the world once the main story is finished. Inquisition might be more polished and well put togheter than DA2, but is definetly -for me at least- less enjoyable. And DA2 is crap to start with.

NWN Is the best RPG on the market, hands down. Thanks to Aurora. Biowares incompetence is seen in the main campaign but the tool these idiots shipped it with out made anything they ever made after it. Hell, they do not even dare ship their games with toolsets anymore cause anything they do, the "horde of nerds" will out do 10 fold, 100 fold, 1000000 fold. NWN is ugly perhaps, boring combat perhaps, bad campaign perhaps! But the toolset given me thousands of hours online, on RP servers, in modules and home brewed stuff. And it is not thanks to Bioware but the good old DnD and RPG community.

Dragon Age is a fart in a tornado compared to it. A mainstream, linear, casualised shit series.

Well, I'm not talking about the toolset here. Like almost everyone in this forum when they talk of NWN as a really shitty game, I'm refering to the OC.

Yep. I wish someone would try to again make a game with a toolset that occupies that sweet-spot that Aurora does: just simple enough to allow people who aren't active game professionals to make good content, and powerful enough for more advanced users to push the envelope. We really haven't seen a toolset designed for gamers since, everything has been a powertool made for developers--which I'd be fine with except that such tools tend to rely on third-party processes that simply aren't feasible for most people (i.e RAD Game Tools and the proprietary Granny3D exporter).

D:OS was supposed to be that

I think that was just wishful thinking, it's very much one of those developer tools with most of the game data being found outside of the editor itself.

To be fair, NWN's data handling is pretty atypical. To have everything from item stats to scripting centralized in a terrain editor is fairly unusual, that only shows up in games where "end users must be able to easily create new content for the game" is a design goal from day 1.

 

[Lhynn]

Well, got to the part where you recruit Sera, she asked me to join and i told her we dont accept crazy people in my inquisition. She put a sad face as i grinned to the screen. Only fun bit in the game, it actually felt like i won the game, and that nothing in it would ever be as good, uninstalled.

That moment was 10/10.

 

[DalekFlay]

D:OS was supposed to be that

Dragon Age Origins was supposed to be that too. It's amazing how fast that fizzled out.

 

[DDZ]

Who is Sera? Is Sera the girl who steals the pants of the soldiers or some shit?

I just let everyone join my inquisition, cause I don't know, why not? I haven't felt like any my decisions mattered so far.

 

[DalekFlay]

Who is Sera? Is Sera the girl who steals the pants of the soldiers or some shit?

I just let everyone join my inquisition, cause I don't know, why not? I haven't felt like any my decisions mattered so far.

Yes. She's your contact with a "terrorist group" that wants to help you, so it makes sense to bring her even if you don't like her. Ends up all they really do is pull pranks though, if I knew that I would have left her behind. The one that really bugs me is Cole. I am playing a pro-Chantry, pro-Templar human and was planning to tell Cole to shove it, because he's a demon. However the only two choices they give you are "everyone attack him!" right after he saves your life, or "sure come along." For as story-focused as Bioware supposedly are they really fuck this shit up pretty much all the time.

 

[Zeriel]

Who is Sera? Is Sera the girl who steals the pants of the soldiers or some shit?

I just let everyone join my inquisition, cause I don't know, why not? I haven't felt like any my decisions mattered so far.

Yes. She's your contact with a "terrorist group" that wants to help you, so it makes sense to bring her even if you don't like her. Ends up all they really do is pull pranks though, if I knew that I would have left her behind. The one that really bugs me is Cole. I am playing a pro-Chantry, pro-Templar human and was planning to tell Cole to shove it, because he's a demon. However the only two choices they give you are "everyone attack him!" right after he saves your life, or "sure come along." For as story-focused as Bioware supposedly are they really fuck this shit up pretty much all the time.

Yeah, the agency of the player has really suffered since DA:O. That game was no masterpiece, but at least you could bargain with and outwit demons. Here, even if you're an experienced mage, Cole just waves his magic hands and you're lobotomized. Or you have the "choice" of becoming butt-buddies with an autistic emo with knives. 10/10, Bioware's magnum opus.

They've really proven the utility of dialogue trees, though. The moment they went from trees to wheel, any nuance or complication vanished overnight.

 

[Mortmal]

Who is Sera? Is Sera the girl who steals the pants of the soldiers or some shit?

I just let everyone join my inquisition, cause I don't know, why not? I haven't felt like any my decisions mattered so far.

Sera is one of the game design error. My theory is that some lesbian bioware fan wrote to them she wanted a npc companion more like a "butch" . If you asked them for tactical combat , or deeper stats system they wont answer you cause they have no clue how to do it , but ask them about romances or cosmetics stuff they will be more than happy to oblige.I am not flaming bioware , its just how it is now, their line of work is actionwith light rpg elements and interactive story with romances.

However with that companion they catered to a minority amongst the minority, as not every lesbians wants that kind of companions same, as not every gay is bottom. Plus i think the lesbian romances are usually mostly for straight guys who likes to play female characters in games, we want pretty women they should target the biggest public first . Who there doesnt enjoy some good lesbian porn eh?

 

[DalekFlay]

Sera is one of the game design error. My theory is that some lesbian bioware fan wrote to them she wanted a npc companion more like a "butch" . If you asked them for tactical combat , or deeper stats system they wont answer you cause they have no clue how to do it , but ask them about romances or cosmetics stuff they will be more than happy to oblige.I am not flaming bioware , its just how it is now, their line of work is actionwith light rpg elements and interactive story with romances.

However with that companion they catered to a minority amongst the minority, as not every lesbians wants that kind of companions same, as not every gay is bottom. Plus i think the lesbian romances are usually mostly for straight guys who likes to play female characters in games, we want pretty women they should target the biggest public first . Who there doesnt enjoy some good lesbian porn eh?

Not defending her character design because I hate it, but I wouldn't call Sera "butch" at all. She's more a typical Joss Whedon style manic pixie. Cassandra would be the "butch" one, and funny enough is only fuckable by men.

 

[Mortmal]

Sera is one of the game design error. My theory is that some lesbian bioware fan wrote to them she wanted a npc companion more like a "butch" . If you asked them for tactical combat , or deeper stats system they wont answer you cause they have no clue how to do it , but ask them about romances or cosmetics stuff they will be more than happy to oblige.I am not flaming bioware , its just how it is now, their line of work is actionwith light rpg elements and interactive story with romances.

However with that companion they catered to a minority amongst the minority, as not every lesbians wants that kind of companions same, as not every gay is bottom. Plus i think the lesbian romances are usually mostly for straight guys who likes to play female characters in games, we want pretty women they should target the biggest public first . Who there doesnt enjoy some good lesbian porn eh?

Not defending her character design because I hate it, but I wouldn't call Sera "butch" at all. She's more a typical Joss Whedon style manic pixie. Cassandra would be the "butch" one, and funny enough is only fuckable by men.

I find sera face even less feminine than cassandra ,and true i expected her to be lesbian as well.